Hunch Over
by freddlerabbit
Summary: Written for Fanfic Challenge 12: Writers of the Silver Screen.  Rossi goes undercover, in a way, along with JJ and Morgan.  Catching the UnSub is only one surprise!


**A/N: this was written in response to Fanfic Challenge 12: Writers of the Silver Screen! **.net/topic/74868/44906495/1/ **My prompts were David Rossi, movie title Just Go With It. Additional surprise character: JJ. It's a little ridiculous. But I do love Rossi.**

Rossi paused for breath, surveying the room calmly. This crowd was outwardly no different than any other book signing group: heterogenous in age, dress and mein, not to mention degree of attention to his words. He had done dozens of readings, tens of dozens, and even since Zoe Hawkes, they no longer raised his heart rate.

Until today.

He surveyed the crowd once more, and resumed. "At the core of these criminals is the need for control," he began, continuing from the prologue of _Deviance_. Morgan stood at the back of the room, holster in evidence, but looking more like a bodyguard than a cop. Prentiss sat in the nearest folding chair, clipboard and files in hand. She could, he thought wryly, have the decency to look interested. Jareau (he couldn't think of her as JJ, it seemed too juvenile, somehow) at least sat in the audience, passing as one more eager fan. And somewhere in an adjoining room, Garcia, Hotch and Reid surveyed the population, hoping to identify the UnSub through a telltale glance, twitch, or exit. He was familiar enough with the words – his own words, after all, honed with countless edits and read aloud for years – that his attention faded from them, as his voice and body carried on.

He wasn't comfortable with undercover operations. He preferred to swagger in and let the UnSub know whom he was dealing with, badge, gun and confidence at the ready. He had lived long enough to know what he was and what he wasn't, and he wasn't very good at pretending to be what he wasn't. Deception made him uncomfortable. He worried about his focus – would his attempt to keep the façade together prevent him from seeing something he otherwise would have? He sighed again, and refocused, catching himself on the pause in his reading.

He glanced back down at the page, and resumed. It wasn't that much of a deception, he supposed – he had, after all, written the damn book; he had read it at signings plenty of times, and supposing nothing came to light here, he would gamely sit and sign further copies and answer questions after he got through this chapter. For all intents and purposes, it was as legitimate a book signing as there ever was. _Except that I'm not getting paid for this one_, he thought, and then corrected, _not counting my salary_. He noted audience members shifting, a woman sneezing, a man in dress slacks discreetly checking his Blackberry. _E-books_, he thought vaguely.

Four minutes later, the chapter had finished, and he closed the boards of the hardback copy the bookstore had lent him. He donned a smile, and, catching Morgan's slight head shake, thanked the audience for there attention and interest. "We have a few minutes for questions, if anyone has any." A brief silence. The woman sneezed again. "At least it makes good bedtime reading," he twinkled out, prompting a half-embarrassed laugh.

Blackberry's neighbor piped up with a reasonably astute question about deterrence and sexual sadists. The audience woke up a bit, and a few members leaned forward in their chairs, eager to voice some dearly held political theory. Rossi parried.

And then, to his surprise, Jareau stood up. His eyebrows lifted. Her expression was angry, and her hands appeared to shake slightly. Eyebrows met hairline. What on earth was going on?

"Agent" – she spat – "Rossi," since she was clearly just beginning, he thought it wiser to let her continue uninterrupted. This was definitely not part of the plan. He just waited, eyebrows still ascending to the ceiling. Other audience members were beginning to swivel in their seats. "You, you're just a _fraud_." She extended a trembling index finger. His eyebrows refused to settle down, but he risked a glance upward and to the sides. Morgan had his hand on the grip of his pistol, scanning the room for whatever had provoked Jareau's outburst. Prentiss simply looked stunned, irises ringed with a thin white line, folders drooping in hand. He didn't waste time imagining the reactions of their teammates on CCTV: Jareau was a solid agent, and, while they occasionally had strong disagreement, she had good instincts. He would play along.

Even if he wasn't sure what the game was.

"I'm sorry you feel that way," he said calmly. Morgan had made his way through the chairs, and began to take Jareau by the arm, as though escorting he were a bodyguard, escorting her out. "No, it's OK," Rossi protested, "let her finish."

Audience heads swiveled back and forth. _Too bad it's not a new release_, he thought. _Any publicity is good publicity, right? _"You act like God," Jareau continued. She began walking toward him, Morgan close behind. "You write these books issuing proclamations about people, claiming you know what is inside their heads, writing them off as somehow beneath you. But you're just a fraud. You're no better!" She stood now at the first row of chairs, almost within arm's reach of the tiny podium at which he stood. "I know the truth about you," she hissed, leaning forward. "I know you're just like them." Jareau reached into her purse, telegraphing her moves broadly so Morgan could see what she was doing.

She pulled out a copy of _Deviance_ and threw it at him, badly. He knew the aim was intentional. The book knocked into a corner of the podium, and pushed it over, to the gasps of the audience, some of whom were rising from their chairs. Blackberry stood up to help restore the podium to its former position.

Morgan, possibly bewildered but still in character, said, "Ok, ma'am, that's enough. Let's go." He grabbed Jareau by an elbow and steered her towards an exit. Her arm flexed, guiding him, and he subtly pivoted so that they would exit behind Rossi, instead of to his side. His gaze followed them, searching for the trigger for this extraordinary scene. His gaze returned to the audience, and he raised a reassuring hand. "I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen – I guess we've turned into an episode of Jerry Springer." The audience chuckled again, and most people started to settle down.

Then he heard it. The click of a safety being disengaged.

"She's not wrong, Rossi," a voice drifted out from behind his ear. The audience members were exhibiting various signs of shock, open mouths, eyes wide, stifled shrieks. He felt a pressure on his temple that he knew to be the barrel of a gun. The pressure increased, and some of the stifled shrieks emerged. "You're just like _us_."

Rossi now raised his hands, palms outward. "Whatever this is, it's about you and me," he said. "Let these people go. They've got nothing to do with it." There was a pause. He could almost hear the sneer. They had profiled the UnSub as highly intelligent, rational, calculating, and immensely egotistical. The odds were good.

"Whatever." The pressure was lifted and people began stumbling out of their seats towards the exit to the side, presumably gestured on by the gun. Sneezing lady cast him a despairing glance, tripped, and was helped back to her feet by a fellow participant. The gun was back at his temple.

Rossi waited until the last heel had disappeared from his line of sight. "So, what _is _this about, then?" he asked, calmly.

The pressure at his temple remained constant as the man swung around to face him. Piercing brown eyes, dilated slightly. Unkempt but recently cut hair. Thin, tall. Good-looking. "You. And me."

"I've read all your books," the UnSub began. _Of course he has, _thought Rossi. _Just when I think I might want to start writing again, another nutcase thinks I've written Serial Killing for Dummies_. "You claim that killing is the only thing that keeps 'the rest of us sane.' And yet you pretend to look down on those who have the courage to do what you can only arrange from afar. Tell me, just once – wouldn't you like to pull the trigger? Admit it."

Rossi looked at him calmly. The profile had been borne out again, almost to the letter. He knew if he said nothing, the man would keep talking, become angrier – and make a mistake.

He was right.

"Oh, Mr. High and Mighty, can't even deign to talk to me, now that all the poor innocents have been rescued! Well, I tell you what, Rossi – every one of my kills? They are yours. All that blood you pretend to despair of? It runs on your hands. I never took a life until I'd read your books. You inspired me, you, and for my actions, you must take part of the credit." High on righteous fury, the man bowed slightly, making an imaginary flourish with the hand he wasn't holding a gun in. The gun drifted just off of Rossi's head. And that's when Jareau took her shot.

He heard the report, felt the man sag slightly, and winced as the gun struck him in the head on its way down. He looked up to see her, composed. She looked up at him. "Same here," she said, dipping her head briefly as he pried the gun away from the writhing criminal. Morgan rushed in to cuff the man, while Jareau called for an ambulance and to update local police.

Outside near the van, curiosity got the better of him.

"What made you do that?" he asked.

"The guy had a gun to your head. I'm a good shot, and I had one opportunity" Jareau replied guilelessly, blue eyes holding his gaze.

"No, I mean, what prompted you to act out at the reading? That's not normally a role you take on – I've seen Prentiss, Reid and Morgan work undercover, but you – I've never seen you act as other than a clearly identified liason."

"Hotch once asked me if I wanted to become a profiler," she began slowly, "and I said that I didn't. I meant it. But that doesn't mean I haven't learned from you. I was there when the profile was given – and I saw something, motion, near that exit. Somehow – somehow I knew it had to be him. A hunch, maybe. But I trust myself to know when to push my hunches. I knew that he was devolving, that he wanted to prove himself – and more than that, that he wanted to prove something about law enforcement."

"He wanted to prove we're no better than he is." It wasn't a question.

"Right. I wasn't sure that it would work, but I was confident that nothing would happen tonight without prompting. I didn't have a way to telegraph his presence before he could have slipped out, and I thought this might provoke him to reveal himself. I took a risk," Jareau admitted. She looked up at him.

"It paid off, kid."

"Yeah." She let out a shaky breath. She looked up at him. "I was hoping the rest of you would just go with it. And you did."

"Well, what are friends for?" Rossi asked wryly.

Jareau exhaled. It was almost a laugh. "I'll be glad to going back to reporters," she confessed.

"You and me both," he agreed, briefly touching the spot where the gun had pressed to his temple. "And, Agent,"—

She looked at him inquisitively.

"Remind me never to play poker with you."

Now she was laughing. "My hunches don't work with poker," she said.

"No bet."


End file.
